CIRCOM Regional organised its 3rd briefing from Oct. 9-11th 2007 during the Open Days in Brussels.
The opening session was led by Michel Delebarre. The President of the Committee of the Regions was pleading for the adoption of a simplified treaty which would allow to get out of the rut.
He wished that the European debate would take place out of the hemicycles to get nearer to the regions and underlined that CIRCOM would be an essential partner in this approach. 70% of the European decisions will be implemented by the local authorities, hence the interest, even the necessity to use regional and local media as relays.

Two main themes were the earmark of this CIRCOM briefing : the Web-TV project led by the European Parliament (in partnership with CIRCOM) and the start of “Mobile TV” in Europe.

• EUROPARL TV

Michael Shakelton (Project Manager, Europarl TV) and Anne-Margrete Wachtmeister (Head of the Audiovisual Department of the European Parliament) presented the broad outlines of this project.
European citizens are complaining that their national media do not inform them enough about European affairs. This is the reason why the European Parliament has decided to use internet to get closer to the European citizens. The realisation of this pilot project was entrusted to Mostra, a communication society in partnership with CIRCOM.
This is both a political (offer more transparency about the EP’s activities) and technical challenge (inform in 22 languages).

Presentation
The EP “Europarl TV” will be divided in 4 different channels :
“Europe live” which offers the possibility to follow live the EP sessions, auditions and the work of the various commissions.
“Your Parliament” is meant for a public who is already specialised (MEPs, experts) to offer him complementary information through interviews and debates.
“Your Europe” is the voice of the general public, essentially during visits of the Parliament.
“Young Europe” offers to discover the European institutions through the eye of young adults/youngsters invited to make interviews of the MEPs.

Editorial
So far no charter exists. The modus operandi should be inspired by the French parliamentary channel. All the political groups will have access to broadcasting time. It will be accessible to all the political groups and each group will be granted exactly the same time.

Content
Six hours of programmes are under preparation. Around 15 journalists will ensure " fresh " reports. The reports taken over from regional stations will not be revised, but only translated. A debate on the conditions under which these reports are handed over is planned during the next CIRCOM Executive Committee meeting in November.
In the long run, 300 hours of programming will be produced each year for the four “channels” of this web TV.
Patrick Delfosse (Editor in chief), Katrina Sichel (Project Leader) and Daniela Drastata (CIRCOM Europarl TV coordinator) have answered the numerous questions about the editorial line and also about the practical conditions for producing the pilot. Unfortunately we could not get a more precise idea about the content as the preparatory phase is still ongoing.

Calendar
The presentation of this prototype to the Committee is planned on Nov. 6th. The final decision will be taken mid-January 2008 for an on-line launch in May 2008 (one year before the next European elections). The MEPs are in general rather reserved about this idea, even if this future web-TV is seen as a world première.

• TV on MOBILES

While studying more closely the "mobile TV" subject in Europe, one can underline the delay taken in this field and the relative caution of the various telco operators regarding this new future media.
Right now, Italy is the only European country to have launched a commercial “mobile TV” which counts between 600,000 and 800,000 customers.
Germany, France and Austria should launch into the venture in 2008, and in any case before Beijing’s Olympic Games which should be considered as the trigger.

The DVB-H norm, promoted European norm since last July, is omnipresent in the ongoing experimentation. Not a single European country has worked out a specific content adapted to “mobile TV” yet. Ancillary questions (regulation, rights, broadcasting costs) are still under consideration.

Europe is for the moment way behind Japan and South-Korea where " mobile TV" belongs to the multimedia landscape.

CIRCOM is part of a joint EU-China roadmapping project "Roadibrom" addressing digital broadcasting and mobile convergence. This consortium brings together, under the aegis of the European Commission, researchers (universities of Munich and Shangai) and manufacturers (STMicroelectronic,Philips). The workshop organized in Brussels allowed to take stock of the situation on “mobile TV” in China: the country is almost lagging behind Europe. The Chinese do not show much interest in “mobile TV”; several operators even stopped relaying the TV with the 3G norm. China prepares its own norm of broadcasting (Chinese Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting) and, in the meantime, the development of “mobile TV” has come to a halt. However the market can be more than promising : 460 million Chinese have a mobile !
Researchers and academics who take part in the “Roadibrom” project have led workshops with representatives of CIRCOM on the expectations of “mobile TV”.
First lesson to be drawn : everything is to be invented and the manufacturers as well as the operators remain cautious in front of this lifeless market (at least for the moment) : technology is not enough to provoke a commercial craze, the “mobile TV” still being considered as a gadget.
The young adults constitute the privileged target of this new media, always in search for content.

If you are interested by the conclusions of the workshops about Roadibrom held in Brussels, please have a look at the project forum website www.ve-forum.org, choose Digital convergence – Roadibrom in the menu “Projects”.

Strasbourg, October 16th, 2007
Catherine Bomeisl
Deputy Secretary General CIRCOM Regional